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Jun 15, 2013

The Place of Traditionalists and Animist in the Nigerian Nation

The Lagos State Government recently placed a limitation on
the use of Hijab by students in public schools in the state. Critical comments by some members of the
society followed the decision. One critic was heard saying that Islam never
said that the Hijab should be worn only at certain moments but all the time as
long as the individual is outdoor.

A lot of Nigerians feel the Lagos State Government should
not be seen to have done anything wrong. Rather the government of that state
should have been commended for allowing some sort of usage of the veil. The
Nigerian constitution says that the country shall be multi-religious but that
it shall not use its resources to help the growth and development of any of the
religions. From common sense, it could be seen that the law was designed to
avoid friction that may arise from perceived discrimination where some
religions could be unjustly treated.

The enormity of constitutional abuses in Nigeria has reached
a dimension where people claim rights in situations where their actions are
apparently in violation of the laws. The unending episodes of people claiming
rights to constitutional violation have, over the decades, been encouraged by
the actions or inaction of the different tiers of government itself. For
instance, it is in public schools that Christian and Islamic Religious studies
are taught using government school buildings, teachers and other academic
resources. The situation is even worse in the north where Islamic Religious
Studies is taught exclusively.

In any school where any single religion is taught, the laws
of the land are infringed upon and the rights of other Nigerians are also
violated. It should be a cause for grave concern if we understand why such laws
were enshrined into the statute by our founding fathers.

The ease with which the government has continued to
encourage violations of the law could been seen also in recent events within
the country with the establishment of Islamic schools in the northern parts of
the country in a bid to impose a limitation to the Almajiri problem that has
become a nagging source of embarrassment and a huge security threat to the
nation. Some argue that should ordinary Nigerians or even the other religions
go to court, they will have a good case.

The Nigerian Television Authority and state government
televisions corporations across the country, also public properties, have been
used to support Islam and Christianity through sermons that are aired on Fridays
and Sundays for Islam and Christianity respectively. There is the need to
distinguish between paid religious programs like those from churches like the
Chris Embassy, Redeemed Christian Church of God and many other similar ones who
pay to have their programs aired and the others, particularly the orthodox
churches whose programs are usually aired without them paying a dime. This
implies that the government is paying for such programs. Along that line,
animist, the new generation churches and traditional religious groups are
cheated.

For as long as one can remember, the use of public resources
to send Christian and Muslim pilgrims to holy lands to perform religious
obligations has been a tradition in the country. Politicians use this as a
means of rewarding their relations or supporters whose ballots ensured they won
elections. The use of public finances to send people to pilgrimage has even
demonstrated what the founding fathers feared, which is that it will create
room for easy discrimination to the ‘weaker’ religions. All one needs to
qualify for sponsorship to the holy land is intimacy, in one way or the other,
to a powerful member of the incumbent administration in your state.

It has been difficult to get clergymen, who together with
their followers have been the beneficiaries of the unconstitutional tradition,
to comment on the issue. All they do is to circumvent the issue and then drag
you to other irrelevant issues.

The government has also encouraged claims of rights to
constitutional breaches through their attitude of building chapels and mosques
in government houses across the nation. In the predominantly Moslem north,
state resources are used to, solely, build mosques. The reverse is true in the
predominantly Christian south of the country where state resources are used to
build chapels to the detriment of other religions.

Nigerian constitution is not
against any religion. The freedom of religion implies that religious groups can
use their own resources to build religious institutions for their followers.

There is no doubt that the ugly trend was encouraged by the
long decades of military in the corridors of power. It was easy for them to do
these things since they ruled by decrees and the gun. The suppression of the
views of the people was the reason why some people fought and died, asking for
democracy. If democracy will encourage rather than discourage these
constitutional infringements, then democracy is yet to start in Nigeria.

There is the need for our leaders to look around the world
to see how democracies are growing. Democracies do not begin and end with
elections and swearing-ins of electoral beaters. This is rather the beginning.
There is also the need for our leaders to understand that sustaining democracy
is not a bed of roses but courageous undertakings that involve sacrifice.

Our
leaders can score a democratic point by directing that all chapels and mosques
in government houses be demolished and that the teaching of all religious
subjects in public schools, primary and secondary, should end.